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Andre lay folded over on his desk, flicking a pencil up to the top and watching it slowly slide down. His backpack was abandoned on the floor, AP Biology and Trigonometry homework spilling out of it that had been left unfinished, if it had even been touched at all. Andre had turned away from the impending hours of studying, he couldn’t even bear to think about it.
All he could bring himself to think about was Cal. All he could think about were his impossibly bright blue eyes, switching from love to hate as their earlier argument escalated faster than a bullet from the barrel of a gun. He reminisced about all the nights they spent laying awake at night, tossing and turning as they talked to each other, becoming vulnerable with each other, until they felt as if they knew more about each other than they knew about themselves. However, memories now contrasted, swirling together in his mind in a haze of confusion.
Andre never had many friends, it had always been him and Cal. Ever since Cal had talked to him in the cafeteria on the first day of sixth grade, they had been inseparable. Well, that was until a few days ago, when it was as if they hadn’t ever spoken. Talks in the halls and walking each other to class were replaced with sour looks as they passed and sitting alone in the cafeteria at lunch. Well, Andre sat alone. Cal sat with Rachel.
But even now, even after everything Andre and Cal had gone through, their argument, calling off Zero Day, Andre couldn't bring himself to hate Cal, second of the Army of Two, his best friend.
His first love, if he was entirely honest with himself. He knew that Cal would never feel the same way, and he had stopped himself from pining as hard as he knew he would if his self-control didn't exist. He hated that he yearned for a boy that had hurt him, yelled at him, fought with him. He hated that he dreamt of the day Cal would come back to him and everything would go back to normal. To how it used to be.
Andre had spent the better part of the last four days crying, body seeming hollow with the loss of his best friend, something that felt like it was all his fault. His fault for orchestrating Zero Day in the first place. He felt full and weighted down by all the things he never got to say. How he never got the chance to confess; “I don’t just want you to be my friend, Cal. I love you, I can’t stop thinking about you, I just love you so damn much.”
–
“What do you mean you want to fucking call off Zero Day?” Cal had cried, his expression contorted, “after everything we’ve done to prepare for it you’re just going to reconsider?”
Andre had remained silent.
“Like we hadnt framed the rest of our fucking lives around this thing?” Cal’s bright eyes were like butter but his words were like the knife that cut through it.
“I–I’m sorry,” Andre said weakly, “I just dont think I can do it.”
Cal hissed something under his breath, through gritted teeth, before turning around, scratching at his arms furiously. A nervous, anxious tic, Andre noticed.
“Fuck! Fuck, Andre,” Cal cursed, reaching up to tug at his hair. Andre hated seeing Cal like this, but he knew that what he said was right.
“Andre, please, I can’t reshape my whole life. I’ve dedicated everything to this. Everything!” Cal sobbed, tears running down his face. Andre’s mouth hung open. He fumbled over the words in his brain, but didn’t say anything, knowing he would just sound like a fool if he tried.
“I just can’t let both of us die in vain,” he finally decided. Cal’s sobs grew quiet, but his shoulders still shook. His head hung like an unused ventriloquist’s dummy.
“Please, Andre,” he whispered, almost unintelligible, “please, I just want to die.”
Andre’s heart fell like a rock in his stomach, and his consciousness erased.
–
Now, here he was. Andre, the one who was supposed to be tough. Who, five days ago, was supposed to murder a lengthy number of classmates from open fire with his best friend. But now he lay in his bed at 10PM on a Friday night, salty tears staining his white pillow gray. Sighing, he rolled over and languidly hoisted himself out of bed, unanchored on his feet. He wiped his face roughly with his sleeve, enjoying the sting it left as it dragged across his eyes. Just as he was about to finally sit down and focus on his homework, he was interrupted by a pounding at the door.
He was home alone. His parents were out of town for his older brother’s university graduation. But they had always told him to at least check who was at the front door. So, Andre crept downstairs and quietly as possible and checked the window from the dining room. Above the tall decorative bushes, a familiar head of peroxide-blond hair bobbed up and down. Andre sucked in a breath and dug his nails into his palms so hard he thought they might draw blood. Shit, he thought, it’s Cal. He hurried over to the door and fumbled with the latch, cursing himself for his sweaty hands and sudden rush of adrenaline. Shut up, stupid heart. He doesn’t love you.
Andre finally managed to undo the lock and swung the door open, heart overflowing with hope. He dreaded yet anticipated those stunning blue eyes, the familiar smile, the soft scent.
But what he saw nearly tore his heart in two. Cal’s usually golden hair was ruined, messed about in his face and drenched in blood and dirt. He cradled his arm to his chest, and his knuckles were bloody. He looked up at Andre, and Andre could see visible bruises along Cal’s face and neck, along with a busted lip and bloody nose. Cal’s posture was heavy and his body stood unsteady, wobbling this way and that, as if he were a newborn fawn, not yet steady on his feet. Cal coughed, and Andre winced at the hurt on his face. His eyes were clouded over and Andre spotted what he thought was a chipped tooth in his mouth.
“Cal..?” Andre breathed, his voice almost a whisper. Cal dipped his head to one side, his dirtied hair spilling into his eyes. He chuckled.
“Heyyyyy Andre.”
His words were slurred, more rolling off his tongue rather than actually being spoken. Andre’s name had been drawn out. Ahn-dree. Andre’s heart dipped. He was drunk. Cal opened his mouth to slur something else, but Andre cut him off before it happened.
“Just– just come in, Cal,” he said. Even if all Andre wanted to do was wrap his arms around the blond and never let him go– especially now, seeing him in such a state of disarray– his ego just couldn’t let go of the events that had led to their separation. Pushing past Andre, Cal stumbled into the entryway, glossy eyes darting around to find something he could cling onto to keep his balance. Andre quickly shut the door. His body working faster than his mind, he rushed to Cal’s side and held out his arms, which Cal clung onto like a sloth on a branch.
Guiding him to the living room, Andre winced at every small sound Cal made. Every step they took seemed like it pulled more and more energy out of him, as he hissed and groaned every time his foot touched the ground.
“Sit down,” Andre said, gesturing to the sofa, “I’ll get a first aid kit.”
Cal slumped himself down on the couch, biting on his lip. Andre wanted to reach out and stop him, knowing for sure that it was just going to lead to the wound getting infected, but he stopped himself and turned to the kitchen to retrieve a first aid kit. When he returned to the living room, Cal had laid his head on the back of the couch, neck exposed, unintentionally showing off all the wounds he had gotten from God knows where. Andre sat next to Cal, startling him.
“Sorry,” Andre apologized, setting the first aid kit on his lap and flicking it open. Cal grunted lazily in reply. Ripping the bag of cotton balls open, Andre pulled one out and examined Cal’s injuries, the bruises on his neck already turning a sickening black, blue and green. Reaching up, he daintily placed two fingers on a bruise on the side of Cal’s neck, resulting in Cal jolting from the pain. Andre pulled his fingers away.
“Shit, sorry.”
“‘T’s okay,” Cal grumbled, shifting his position to be closer to Andre, who soaked the cotton ball in a bottle of alcohol from the first aid kit. Spotting a small cut on Cal’s temple, Andre ran his fingers though Cal’s unnaturally matted hair, holding the blond strands back and transferring the dirt from Cal’s hair to his finger tips. He rubbed at the cut with precision, weary when Cal let out a little hiss of pain. He tried his damndest not to revel in the softness of Cal’s hair.
Cal looked up at Andre, eyes glossy with unshed tears and brows knitted together. Andre caught the small sniffle Cal tried to hide. He coughed instead and Andre could just cry. But instead he set the cotton ball down on the coffee table and, using his hand, hooked it underneath Cal’s chin and turned his head towards his own.
“Cal,” he whispered, “who did this to you?”
Cal’s breath hitched and a cold tear ran down his cheek, landing softly on Andre’s thumb, which curled around Cal’s cheek.
“Do y-you want the long answer or–” he still struggled to speak, “the s-short answerrrr?”
“Whichever one you’d like to tell.”
The boy’s shoulders sank.
“Brad Huff caught me at the worst time.”
With his free hand, Andre dug his fingernails into his palm again.
“I left home with a bottle of my dad’s vodka. I– I drank it all. I was standing by Main Street, and I didn’t know what to do. I felt awful, and all I wanted to do was die, Andre. So I… I tried to jump into traffic. But Brad and his friends saw me, pulled me back into an alley and decided that they were gonna k–kill me instead.”
He paused, raising one of his shaking arms to wipe tears from his eyes.
“They beat me until I passed out. It hurt so bad, Andre. I woke up later and the only place I knew to go was your house.”
Andre’s mind buzzed.
“Cal, honey. You tried to kill yourself?”
A nod. He turned away from Andre, fists clasped in his lap. Andre studied Cal, watched the way his hair fell into his beautiful face and how he pushed it back, the trail of bruises along his jaw, the clench of his bloodied fists. Bloodied fists, as if he had tried to fight back. Andre blinked, unknowing how this boy who sat beside him, this beautiful, beautiful boy would want to end his own life. Andre wanted to step inside his brain, control his thoughts and rewire his brain, just to make sure nothing ever plagued him again.
“Hey,” Andre whispered, reaching out to place a tender hand on Cal’s shoulder, “look at me.”
Cal did, blowing out a puff of air and centering himself. He was still somewhat unstable, rocking back and forth on the couch. But it wasn’t as bad as before.
“Can you tell me exactly what happened?” Andre asked. He watched as Cal’s eyes widened, the dark circles under them more prominent. Or maybe that was just a bruise. Andre didnt know which one he would rather it be.
“Okay,” Cal said, voice sickly with fear, his nails clawing at the skin of his other palm. As Cal began to speak, Andre continued patching him up, gently and carefully.
“Look, I’ve spent the longest time hating myself and feeling so weak and helpless, always at the mercy of kids like Brad and his friends. But then our plan for Zero Day came around and I finally felt like I had a reason to eventually fight back. Get back at them for all the shit they did to me. I loved it, I loved the thrill of seeing them at school and hoping that someday I would see them crumble to the floor with a bullet through their chest. I got tricked by my own hatred of myself into thinking that being a masochist was the only way to escape, and that wasn’t right, a-and I feel like deep down I knew it wasn’t right, y’know?”
Andre nodded, rolling up Cal’s short sleeve to dab at a cut on his elbow.
“But the bigger part of me– the evil part of me– wanted to believe that it was true. So I manipulated myself until I felt that death– suicide, after this huge massacre, this huge bravado of an exit from this world– was the only option.”
Cal’s sapphire eyes contorted into that familiar look of muted rage that sent a chill down Andre’s spine. It was the same look that Cal displayed on their tapes, which by this point had been burned to ash, never to be viewed by anyone, ever.
“I didn’t change like that just because of Brad and his friends,” Cal added, “I also had a lot going on.”
“What do you mean?” Andre asked, pushing his own hair out of his face, “you tell me everything.” He paused. “Well, at least you used to.”
At this, Cal winced and Andre noticed another tear fall from Cal’s downturned head onto his tattered and dirt-ridden jeans. The ones he had ripped the knees out of himself.
“I just had some shit I was dealing with, alright? I fucking hated myself!” The hiss in his voice was laced with toxicity. “I wanted to die so goddamn bad. I couldn’t wait twenty, thirty, fourty, fifty, hell, even sixty years to die a normal death. I needed to die soon. I made a plan to die before my eighteenth birthday. I– I never wanted to see adulthood. At all.”
Andre’s arm fell from tending to Cal’s nosebleed. In his mind, his whole plan for Zero Day was to take out his shitty, unwanted anger on other people. Andre wanted to kill other people, but Cal just wanted to kill himself. Cal angrily shook his head, staring up at the ceiling and blinking rapidly to stall the tears. His legs shook, a sure sign that he was anxious, and he picked at the scars on his wrists.
“Andre,” Cal mumbled, “there’s one thing I hate, and it's feeling weak. It just reminds me of all those years we’ve let those assholes push us around. And you, you made me feel better about being angry, being… being fucked up inside. So when you called off Zero Day I thought that this whole facade I had created to push down the saddest parts of me was just going to crumble down. I wanted to die before I let that happen. But when we argued that night I–” his voice caught in his throat, “when I yelled at you. Blamed it on you, called you names. I saw your face and saw you maybe start to cry and I felt so fucking shitty and I tried to ignore it but really I wanted to kill myself right then and there. I tried to hold off but tonight I lay in bed thinking about you, thinking about how much I missed you. Stupidly I thought drinking my thoughts away would help. But it just made everything worse, and I fucked it up.” He let out a sob, and buried his head in his hands, tearing at his hair. “I fucked it up for me, I fucked it up for you”
Andre was dumbstruck. Cal peeked through his fingers, eyes glassy. He tried to smile that heartbreaking smile and said, “Brad is the only one winning tonight, Andre.”
Andre shifted closer towards Cal. Cal who looked so small, so fragile. Cal, who looked like one of those rainwashed puppies in an animal cruelty PSA. Slowly, carefully, Andre put his arm around his small figure as it began to shake, each shiver sending a ripple of longing down Andre’s spine. He cursed himself for not being there, for not noticing the signs. For not immediately stepping in when, during their argument, Cal had told him that he just wanted to die. God, why was he so stupid?
“No, Cal. That’s not true,” Andre said. He felt the shoulder of his shirt become damp with Cal’s tears.
“It’s all my fault,” Cal sobbed, repeating the phrase over and over until it almost didn’t mean anything anymore. He dug his nails into Andre’s sleeve. Andre wanted to lean down and kiss him.
“Cal. Listen to me,” Andre pleaded. No response. “Calvin.”
The rare use of his full name garnered Cal’s attention and he looked up, dried tears mixing with the crimson blood that stained his cheeks.
“Blame everything on me. I planned Zero Day, I told you about it, I convinced you to go along with it. I made the plan to egg Brad’s house. I was the one who made the plan to steal Chris’ guns. I sawed off my Dad’s shotgun. The thought of Zero Day was fun and exhilarating for a while. I had a way to get rid of my angry thoughts, the thoughts that kept me up at night. But I found myself getting lost within this violent fantasy so much that I felt as if I was losing you. Losing you to this violent fantasy. As I studied you I saw you dipping so far down into this convoluted mass of misanthropy and just pure disdain for everyone that it scared me. Zero Day brought out a part of you that I never knew existed, and that I wished didn't exist. As bad as that sounds it's true. Seeing you that way made me hate myself for being so angry at everything and not just fucking sucking it up and waiting one more year to graduate and then get on with my fucking life. So I called off Zero Day. I knew it was going to hurt you, I knew you wouldn't like to hear it, but I also knew that if I didn't do it, you wouldn't do it either. I knew you wouldn't go through with Zero Day on your own. And– you didn’t. I’m glad you didnt; and I’m glad your attempt this evening didn’t work either, because then you wouldn't be here with me. Because,” he took a breath in, “because I love you, Cal. I love you so much and I don't know when those feelings started but I don't care because now I’ve accepted them. When we were arguing I was going to tell you but it escalated so fast and I didnt know what to do.”
Andre swallowed, then stopped. Cal’s striking eyes drilled holes into him, chin now lifted, despite the clear look of anguish he had mere moments ago. But slowly, as Andre’s words started to sink in, Cal’s eyes widened and he let his mouth hang open slightly. Andre watched as his expression changed slightly thirty times within the five seconds of silence that loomed between them.
“Oh,” was all Cal could say. Andre felt a pit in his stomach, and he dreaded that he had just messed things up more. But Cal turned to him, blue eyes intense with some unknown emotion. His eyes flickered down to Andre’s lips, and he leaned in. Andre’s heart jumped into his throat. As if his body was practicing the familiar pull of a trigger, he automatically leaned in to Cal’s warmth, his scent, the familiarity. He could taste salt from Cal’s tears. Or maybe it was the traces left of his blood. But he didnt care.
“You’ve never been anything but perfect to me,” Andre whispered huskily, his lips lingering on Cal’s. Pulling away slowly, Cal’s lip quivered.
“You… you really mean that?”
Andre scoffed quietly. “Of course. Why wouldn't I?”
Cal groaned and rested his forehead on Andre’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he apologized again. Mimicking his actions from only a few minutes before, Andre tilted Cal’s head up with two fingers.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. We can just be normal, alright? Well, as normal as we can get for kids who were planning a massacre.”
“God,” Cal hissed, “I never want to hear anything about that ever again.”
Nodding, Andre silently agreed. Cal tilted upward again and pressed his lips to Andre’s hands sliding up to cup Andre’s neck and pull him closer. Andre sighed. Cal took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, grasping Andre’s stupid gray-green shirt with his other hand and pushing him down further so his back was on the couch and Cal hovered above him. Surprised by the sudden rush of intensity, Andre broke the kiss, staring up at Cal and panting from the novelty of it all.
“Did you really mean it?” He asked. Cal’s brows furrowed.
“Mean what?”
“That you wanted to die before your eighteenth birthday.”
“I mean,” Cal shrugged, “I had formed that mentality for myself when I was different. Plus, if I never make it to adulthood I won’t be able to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Andre’s heart swelled, but he knew something was still missing.
“Cal, dark thoughts like those don't just go away so easily. There’ll always be a part of us thats pretty fucked up.”
Cal nodded. “I know. I just want to try and make room for the good things.”
Andre blinked a few times as the soft music of rain began to patter on the windows.
“I think we can make that work.”